


Permanent

by inplayruns



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M, ep 5.21: Two Minutes to Midnight, ep 5.22: Swan Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-14
Updated: 2012-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-03 15:46:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inplayruns/pseuds/inplayruns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few nights before the world ends, Castiel cannot sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permanent

A few nights before the world ends, Castiel cannot sleep. 

It’s a new experience. Everything’s new. When the Winchesters would sleep before, he’d merely flit off somewhere, landing in Egypt or China. He’d go to the rainforests and expand his Grace to the very edges of his vessel; he knew he could tilt the world off its axis with a mere thought if he ever returned to Heaven, but he ached to understand how humans could go through their lives as they did, with the trees looming above their heads and the dark richness of the dirt beneath their feet. They are helpless against the coming and going of the weather, a constant reminder of how powerless they truly are.

Castiel used to be able to see everything. Being called to the sprawling Singer Salvage never bothered him, however shabby the upkeep, because he saw beyond its walls. The ruined cars drew his interest in particular, because he glanced at them and saw the stories inside. They were ponderous things, yes, but he saw hunts and trips to the supermarket alike etched into their wheels. Castiel saw the whole map of the Midwest in minute detail, every dirt road and the clumps of wheat alongside the highway.

Now, he sees none of it. He sees the tumbled assortment of cups inside one of Bobby’s cabinets, glinting dimly in the darkness with cut-up light – the moon, fading streetlights – from outside leaking in, because he’s staring at that. Grunting, he selects the two largest cups he can see, and fills them eagerly from the sink.

At his first long gulp, he nearly chokes and all but gags the water onto the floor, because temperature never used to matter but the tap water was hot, so hot. Castiel doesn’t understand why warmer water doesn’t break up the tickle of thirst in the back of his throat more easily, but he understands so little about this body; he is used to it as an ungainly tool, something necessary but not entirely pleasant, like the silver blades still blotched dark with the blood of his brothers. Still, he maneuvers its hand over to the sink again, remembering to turn on the other water faucet this time.

He’s greedily gulping down this water, when Dean enters the kitchen as well. His feet are bare, and Castiel has never cringed at that before, at the thought that he could catch his heel on a nail or stub his toe too hard. Merely walking through the house must dirty him, even if it is in a rather mundane manner. Still, Castiel can no longer sense the brightness of his soul in every movement, the way it would spark out when he shifted his shoulders or bent his knees, and the idea of Dean walking with dirty-soled feet makes spit build in his mouth.

“Yeah, everything interesting happens at this time of night anyway,” Dean says as way of greeting, as he pads over to the refrigerator, pulls it open easily, and wraps his fingers around three beers. 

Castiel’s careful to observe how, exactly, Dean sits at the table, splaying his legs in front of him. It’s so effortless, and Castiel is ensuring he will never be able to do the same because he insists on _observing_ this. “Want one?”

Castiel shakes his head no, and lowers himself into a chair as well. He does not attempt the leg-splaying. “I was thirsty,” he explains, his own hands cupped against the glasses. One is plastic, one glass, and they’re both horribly chipped, so much so that he peeks into the water to assure that nothing floats there.

“I’m always thirsty.” He offers half a grin as he points the beer at Castiel, just for a moment.

Dean exerts no effort in tugging the top off the first beer, and Castiel thought he found humanity fascinating before, but that was nothing. Before, he had everything else to watch, too; now, he has nothing else but the other human bodies, trapped too tightly to their places by wooden furniture. So he watches the subtle flex of Dean’s arm as he unscrews the top of the beer bottle, and then the long, heavy swallows and how they cause his Adam’s apple to bob easily. 

He belches. That is less pleasant. “Don’t be disgusting,” Castiel mutters, but there’s no edge behind it and Dean just grins wider. It doesn’t quite show in his eyes, and Castiel would not expect it to.

“Gross,” Dean amends. “The word you’re looking for is gross.”

Castiel files it away. “I’m also too hot and cold at once,” he grumbles. It would be uncharitable to mention that the blankets at Bobby’s scratch his skin in an unpleasant manner. But he misses the constant warmth of his Grace, so he needs them, even though they can’t begin to replace that. “I don’t – there are so many – how do humans deal with this, Dean? It’s so _much_.” 

He used to be able to look out at a highway and see inside every car driving on it. In that trip to Waterville with Dean, he’d spent much time amusing him by telling him the life story of every other driver on the roads. He wandered through fields of wheat and long, abandoned beaches searching for his Father, and could count every grain of vegetation and sand alike. And this, humanity, this was too much for Castiel. 

Dean fixes Castiel with one of his looks. He could not understand them when he was an angel, and it’s no better as a near-human. Yes, he looked back, perhaps even started most of the looks, but it had been because Dean was so _fascinating_. Castiel wanted to see the way the gold flecks in Dean’s eyes shifted under the light, or marvel over how he’d rounded out those lips. He ached to understand freckles, how they could mottle someone’s face and yet make it no less beautiful.

Looking at Dean was pleasing, especially for someone as prideful as Castiel. The human body had been a tricky study, especially with little practical experience. Castiel had done well enough in recreating it. That kind of power seems impossible to him now; he tries to remember it, and his brain only provides him with an image of worn textbooks. He thinks of Heaven, and all he can see are the vessels of his brothers.

“You saying I’m keeping it together?” Dean comes up with, eventually. That broken smile is stuck on his face. 

“I’m not sure,” Castiel responds, which earns him a snort from Dean. “I mean it. In my opinion, no, you’re not particularly well-adjusted, but I don’t know how any other person would handle this situation any better. It is difficult.” He feels his throat wearing out with all this speech, and swallows down more water. “Humanity by itself is so – limiting and complicated –”

“Thanks,” Dean interrupts, sarcastic – Castiel has learned that, at least – but with no bite behind it. “So, you on Team Humanity now, or you still got a couple of feathers stuck in your back?”

Castiel runs his tongue along the line of his lips. When the saliva dries, there’s an obnoxious tug behind it. “I can no longer hear the song of my brothers,” he attempts to explain. “It was terribly muted before, but there. I cannot sense souls or Grace. But I could not have approached Pestilence as I did, or exorcised that demon, without something of my Grace left inside me.” He pauses. “And yet I know I could never do this again –”

He thinks it’s a simple way to demonstrate. Quickly, he sheds the trenchcoat and overcoat, to Dean’s eyebrows raising. Castiel ignores that to divest himself of the tie, as well, and then his hands trip on their way down his front. Buttons are tricky.

“Whoah, Cas, you can’t just strip in the kitchen –” Dean starts, choked off by half a laugh, but his voice fades as Castiel tugs the shirt out of his pants and opens it up. Castiel has seen so many flowers unfurl and bloom, then shrivel and fall off their stems, and it reminds him of this. 

His chest is flat – Jimmy was a jogger – and neither particularly pale nor dark. Now, though, there is a pattern of heavy scar tissue drawn across there. The circle is the largest there, but it encases Enochian wards, and a pattern of flared triangles surround it. Castiel is lucky enough that he woke up with it healed to this point; it’s too much to ask this symbol of his betrayal of his brothers to vanish. 

In the hospital, they’d whispered, and he’d heard the word _cult_ in their conversations every now and then. They wonder how he survived such an extensive wound. These conversations increased in number when Bobby sent over all that money to pay for his treatment and pain medication alike. 

For his part, Castiel had tried not to spend much time thinking about the way Dean had bit his lip and trembled as he studied the paper Castiel provided and sliced at his skin with the boxcutter, his hand far firmer on his shoulder after he’d buttoned his shirt up again. It proved impossible. 

“This would kill me from the blood loss now,” Castiel explains, watching Dean’s eyes loop around what he’d made. His jaw has gone a little slack. 

Dean finally moves his lips together, and nods. He starts on his second beer. “I’m sorry,” he offers. Castiel never could read minds, exactly, but the louder thoughts of humans were simply there for him to absorb. Some vestige of that makes him recognize Dean isn’t only apologizing for the banishing sigil. Or maybe it’s merely human instinct, which is a frightening prospect to contemplate.

Castiel thinks it would be appropriate to shrug, but he doesn’t know how. “You saved Chicago today,” he comes up with, as a response. 

They could stay up all night with Dean naming the bad things he has done, and Castiel attempting to top them with the good, and they would be no further in their conversation than when they began. _You don’t think you deserve to be saved?_

At some point, Castiel thinks, you are supposed to get away from people like Dean, because they only end up hurting you. Even he can understand that. Dean literally introduced him to the concept of _hurt_. And Castiel has still stuck around. He wants to.

“You need…” Dean reaches a hand up and pats over the expanse of his pectoral muscle. “Close enough to human now that we don’t need stunt demon number eleven occupying you at the last minute. Don’t exactly have a tattoo gun, but I’ll find something.” He stands up and leaves the kitchen. Castiel hears rummaging, and passes the time watching the glint of light off the beer bottles. Night is such a strange thing, how so many things are visible despite the darkness bearing down.

Dean interrupts his thoughts by appearing in the doorway, and flattening his forearm against the frame. “In here,” he indicates with a jerk of his head. Castiel knows he sleeps in those clothes, heavy flannel and denim. His own attempts to sleep in Jimmy’s clothes have been less successful; his muscle memory isn’t suited for snatching three hours of sleep on a too-hard mattress – since when does he have mattress preferences – in the rough clothing he’s worn all day. “Keep your shirt, uh, like that.” It’s still hanging open. 

Carefully, Castiel sits down on the worn sofa. Dean picks up a thin, cylindrical thing, and shakes it in his fist a few times. “What’s that?”

“Permanent marker,” he explains, with a little laugh. “Thing’s half-dead.” The easy bend of Dean’s wrist as he shakes the marker seems impossible with the knobs of his wristbone, but it happens. “Might wanna, um, take your shirt off all the way, actually.” He’s kneeling in front of a table, and then he’s standing up and sitting next to Castiel on the sofa, but the whole time he doesn’t quite look at him.

Dean’s touched his bare skin before. His eyes were wide the whole time he carved the sigil into Castiel, but he did it. But it’s not the same, not when there’s so much humanity Castiel still struggles to process. There is sour beer on Dean’s breath and this time, the hand on his shoulder is something pulling him down. Castiel could tumble backwards onto this sofa if he wanted, easily.

“Okay,” Dean breathes, uncapping the marker. The smell of it makes Castiel recoil. “Yeah, not ideal, but it’ll stick around through a couple of showers.”

“It’s not really permanent, then.”

“Nah.” Dean draws a little closer. “Maybe you guys can get some mojo into these thi –” His eyes suddenly go wide. “Oh, shit, Cas.” Apologies are not really in Dean’s nature, even at the end of the world, and those words will have to do.

Castiel doesn’t know what to say. It’s not really alright, but it’s not Dean’s fault either. It is, but it isn’t. In many ways, he was the cause, but Castiel was the one who stepped into that warehouse and pushed his sword through Alon’s throat, and felt little remorse when he saw his Grace splinter and explode. Dean did not push him, or grip his wrists and push them down. Instead of trying to express that, Castiel just nods, stiffly. 

“If it will protect me,” he says, eventually, “then yes.” The tiny part of him that’s still angelic, somehow, craves the word. Castiel relishes the shape of _yes_ in his mouth; it’s an indulgence and necessary, all at once.

The nudge of the marker’s tip against his skin feels odd. There’s a decent amount of give for both, like they are both so easily bendable. When the marker moves away, just for a few seconds for the sake of the breaks in the star and the circle, Castiel fights the temptation to lean back in again. It seems odd that the anti-possession ward is a chopped-up star; it should be whole, full, the semi-circle of a lock.

Castiel’s aware Jimmy’s form is a bit shorter and thinner than Dean’s, but it was never an issue in the past, not when he was merely using this body to house his Grace on Earth. But now that’s _all_ he’s aware of. The slight difference becomes exaggerated to Castiel.

Dean’s breath feels close to a physical weight, and his knuckles alternatively press against and brush his chest. Castiel lets his eyes fall shut. It should be frightening, depriving himself of one sense, but it makes the others seem stronger. There is just so much of Dean; there always has been, in a way, but not like this. 

Castiel has never been so aware of the way Dean’s forehead is so close. He remembers Dean’s braying _personal space_ lecture, but never understood it until now. Everything was so cramped on Earth, and Castiel had previously not seen the difference between standing a foot away from Dean, and standing a few meters away. 

Now, he’d only have to lean forward an inch or two and they’d be skin on skin. They _are_ skin on skin, but even someone as new to all this as Castiel recognizes that touch would be different than Dean’s hand resting on his chest as he finishes the details of his anti-possession tattoo. 

The marker squeaks against his skin, and Castiel realizes how uncomfortable he is. He’s _hard_ , the length of it pressing against cotton and the material of his pants, and it makes him squirm, wanting. This moment should be terrifying, but it’s not, not with what he has been through in human form already, and certainly not when he considers what may be coming in the next few days.

“Careful,” Dean murmurs. “Almost done.” He’s drawing short strokes now, the fire-like flare clinging to the protective circle of the tattoo. His spare hand has gone flat over Castiel’s heartbeat, as if his palm’s cradling it there. “There ya go.” The cap goes back on top of the marker with a satisfying little click.

Dean moves in, which makes Castiel’s eyes open up again. He’s greeted with the sight of Dean’s bowed head and his lips, easily rounded, as he blows out over the new tattoo to dry it off. The shininess of the black disappears in patches, until it’s matte. So many sensations overwhelm his newly human body, and Castiel isn’t sure which one he likes the best.

“Dean,” Castiel rasps out, and he can’t help it, he closes his fingers around Dean’s wrist. As an angel, Castiel lived with the knowledge that he could break Dean with a mere thought, but now it’s Dean that has – well, not quite that power, but close. His body is so much stronger than Castiel’s empty vessel, and he could snap his arm backwards, or stuff his face into the sofa hard. Dean was capable of it; Castiel saw him in Hell. 

Castiel also tucked Dean’s long, thin veins and arteries into this wrist, and surrounded them with the bone and muscle and layers of skin that comprise all he can see now. It’s been nearly two years, but it’s almost a relief to feel the pulse pick up under his fingers, an assurance he didn’t skew Dean sideways when he brought him out of perdition. He remade him properly, after all. 

Castiel had been so powerful then, by human standards, and he’s so not now. He’s so useless he doesn’t know what to do with the hot, uncomfortable shift of his penis, held back behind layers of now-going-damp cotton. The zipper stays over it, firm. “I don’t – I –” 

Language had always been Castiel’s specialty. He was a warrior, yes, but he couldn’t fight like some of his brothers; he made up for it, in some ways, with his intelligence and planning. But human words failed him too often, no matter what language; they were all so simple and too vague at once. So Castiel just hitched his hips up best he could, and groaned as he rubbed his cheek against Dean’s, his stubble catching the skin there.

“What the hell,” Dean says, but it’s more like a long exhaled breath, and he doesn’t pull away. His voice sounds like the Impala running over rough road. 

It’s Castiel’s turn to exhale when Dean’s palm, so warm, links around the back of his neck. “Okay,” he murmurs. “This what you want?”

Castiel is tempted to move his head in a gesture that would indicate confusion. But that gesture would likely move himself away from Dean, so he restrains. “I don’t know what you mean.” He certainly has an idea, but he’s misinterpreted humans before.

He’s millions of years old, and was there when Gabriel trumpeted the creation of this planet. He shouldn’t feel like a child. An emotion as human as _grumpiness_ is settling into his bones and through his blood, when Dean’s lips – they don’t even brush his own, it’s more like a suggestion.

He’s less grumpy, now. 

But he has no idea how to react, so he merely moves forward. Chastity – Elise, really – had started with loosening his clothes, her lips sticky with gloss on her neck. Castiel had buzzed with the wrongness of all of that, how he didn’t want it, not like this. Her father was as good an excuse as any, and it was more comfortable to bump shoulders with Dean in the alley afterward anyway.

This is a different sensation, now, and even closer than that. They’re lips on lips, and Dean’s are dry but not chapped like his own. It’s a little raspy, a little uncomfortable, but then Dean’s hands steady over Castiel’s hips and he bites on his lip, getting it damp with his own saliva when he worries it between his teeth. 

Inappropriately, Castiel thinks of Uriel’s horrified reaction when someone described this action to him once. For the first time in his very long existence, he fights a laugh by kissing harder, pushing his body up again until his bare stomach hitches Dean’s layers up and aside a bit. 

“This is okay, right?” Dean pulls away from Castiel. It’s not very far, but he’s already full of the disgusting desire to _whine_ and drag Dean back. 

“Why are you asking,” Castiel huffs back in response, not even a question, and Dean barks out a laugh as he pushes another kiss up against Castiel’s mouth. Dean’s lips are messier than usual, starting to get puffy and wet, and Castiel’s fascinated at the way his touch arrows right to his gut, his genitals. 

It’s not as if Castiel had never considered this before. He may have been a virgin in every sense of the word, but he knows it’s a way humans and angels alike convey affection. Angels cannot read minds without express permission, exactly, but they can sense louder thoughts, and that’s how he knew Dean desired this, too.

But images would come to mind – Dean sucking the spur of a hipbone, sliding his tongue up the inside of a thigh, Castiel’s knees hitting the ground while his fingers fumbled over belt and buttons and a zipper – and he’d feel his Grace swell so quickly, as if angered, and threaten to burn through this body. He’d hear the hummingbird heartbeat of Jimmy Novak push blood through his veins, and he knew he couldn’t do it; he’d Fall, he’d defile the vessel and be no better than a demon. The skin he’d come to think of as his own would thrum with self-loathing, but not desire, not any more.

His Grace is gone. This vessel’s spirit has passed on and he’s alone in this body. He kisses back and goes hot anew.

When Dean opens his mouth, Castiel is somewhat expecting it. He’s observed humanity for thousands of years, after all, and he could access Jimmy’s memories. He does not even mind the tang of beer still clinging to the inside of Dean’s cheeks. But when Dean’s tongue slicks against his own, he gasps and _moans_ , and it would be more embarrassing if the slide of their mouths together didn’t muffle it.

Castiel has instincts now, and it doesn’t even feel strange. It should, because it makes no sense that two tongues pushing together sloppily would make his very guts tighten, but not unpleasantly. He’s had Grace pulse against borrowed skin, strode into a volcano once out of curiosity, and didn’t know he could get this warm.

Hands. He should do something with his hands. They slip to Dean’s front and push the flannel from his shoulders, then plunge under his t-shirt. It’s not like Castiel doesn’t _know_ Dean, couldn’t sketch out his whole body in embarrassing detail, but it’s one thing to know his shoulder joints were assembled correctly and it’s another to work your hand up and thumb over a nipple. Fascinated, Castiel watches the shift of his knuckles under Dean’s shirt.

“Let’s make this easier,” Dean breathes, his voice already gone raspier than normal. He’s moving, then, all but dumping the shirt off. Castiel stares, unabashed, at the flex of muscles and the subtle shift of Dean’s skin, the pretty curve of his biceps and the easy bend of his fingers. 

Up to this point, Castiel has viewed human bodies as frustratingly limited cages of skin and bone and organs. But he sees Dean like this and he cannot understand why so many angels let their jealousy over humanity’s beauty tip toward resentment, not when these bodies truly are so wondrous. 

Castiel remembers the tattoo over his chest, part of the reason they’re here, and lets his curiosity take over to lick Dean’s matching one. It tastes like his skin, a hint of salt and adrenaline beneath the surface. His tongue pokes at it, out of curiosity, and Dean laughs even if it sounds broken.

Dean’s got his fingers weaving into Castiel’s hair, then, tugging his head up gently just so they can meet eyes. Before, Castiel was so preoccupied with Dean’s soul – a beacon in the Pit, and even brighter on Earth – that he couldn’t see how beautiful the man himself was, not often. “You get it, right?” his plump lips say. “I just want one fucking good thing to happen to someone before…”

He could mean so many things. Castiel doesn’t let him think, hauling Dean against him. They kiss, one slipping into the other, and it’s so wet and noisy and good that Castiel’s baffled humans find anything else to do at all. 

And then they’re both half in each others’ laps, Dean slowly grinding his hips, and when the denim between Dean’s legs pushes up against the dark fabric holding Castiel’s erection back Castiel puffs out a breath. “I’m very aroused, Dean,” he whispers. He doesn’t mean for his voice to be that low; it just seems to have slipped to a deeper register.

Dean laughs, and presses their foreheads together. Castiel never thought this could be so comforting, how their noses brush against each other with every word, but humanity constantly surprises him. At least, the Winchesters’ brand of humanity does. “Always did like dirty talk,” Dean responds, agreeably, and somehow makes the kiss even deeper when their lips crash again.

 _Fuck_ , was the word Dean so often used. It could be used for a lot of things, Castiel knew – exclamation and frustration, but also a physical act. He’s _fucking_ into Dean’s mouth with his tongue right now, hot and thrusting. Strangely enough, it gives him even more pleasure to note how sloppy the kiss is. Castiel feels the cringe in Dean’s body when their teeth knock against each other, but the sensation drops down Castiel’s spine just like their tongues licking together, just like Castiel’s matching reaction when the corner of Dean’s lips quirks up. 

Dean’s hands are grounding him. _Grounding_ him, and he doesn’t pull away. There’s no point in denial, now – he _wants_ it. It was blasphemous to want, Zachariah told him once, but Zachariah is dead and Castiel has his own heart beating in his chest as the angels’ Righteous Man noses over it. Castiel will take what he wants, for right now.

It is odd to see Dean’s back nearly folded as he explores Castiel’s chest, slow and near-careful. Castiel has seen him perform sexual acts with women and men alike, and knows he likes it like this, almost measured. And he knows it hasn’t been like this with the men at all, only sticky fumbling in bar bathrooms that left bite marks on Dean’s neck – but Castiel is the first man, and it’s odd to think of himself as that but he is now, to make Dean’s lips go puffy and messy from kissing.

Those lips find his nipple and Castiel is arching up, like it’ll get him closer and this feeling will ramp up. He can’t help the ragged noise that comes out of his mouth, and it would frighten him if he wasn’t so distracted by pure sensation, nestling its way into every vein and blood vessel. 

Dean’s fingers skirt his scar tissue and it feels like something precious, something holy. The sacrifice was worth it, because he’s here with Dean Winchester at the end of the world and Dean is streaking his fingers over the white skin, asking if it is alright.

Most of the angels were not as disdainful of humans as Uriel or Zachariah. They were jealous of humans, certainly, but they loved humanity blindly, for being their Father’s favorite. Castiel is growing dangerously close to Pride as he thinks this, but he realizes now that they had no idea. They loved humanity, but they wouldn’t dare let themselves stretch out under it on a ratty sofa, still smelling like permanent marker; they would scoff at the _permanent_. 

Castiel was screaming light the human brain could not comprehend, entire collapsed dimensions into a vessel. Now he’s this, and he neither hates it, nor wants to accept it; instead, he will make the best of it.

Dean’s palms move over his thighs, and it distracts Castiel from his thoughts. They’re so warm, and he’s gone _hot_ between his legs. It’s a weight, an ache, a need, and he never knew this in Heaven or in this plane of existence before. “Gonna take these off, okay,” he asks, muttering into the flesh over his collarbone. Castiel wants him sucking there, wants his teeth biting down. If this body expires some time soon and there are survivors, he wants them to discover it covered in the marks Dean left.

“I wish you’d stop asking questions,” Castiel grumbles, and Dean smiles. It looks only a bit broken. He undoes the belt, then, grunting because it’s stiff with disuse. His hands make quick work of the button and fly, and it’s all Castiel can do but lift his hips and watch his dress pants and underwear slide down his legs. 

It’s all so fascinating, because he’s seen millennia, and he’s had universes live inside him. He’s seen humans undress each other, too, seen Dean Winchester crowd girls into the backseat of the Impala and peel their clothing away. 

But he’s never seen this, never had eyes flicking up into his measured gaze while exposing more and more of the skin that’s his and not his at once. Dean looks down, then, at Castiel’s exposed sex organ, gone thick and red and wet at the tip, and runs his tongue over his lips. Castiel has to remind himself to breathe at that, which seems silly.

“How do you want to do this?” Dean asks, because he’s never been good at following orders that didn’t come from his father, ever. It’s odd to see him so gentle, questioning even, but Castiel knows the way sex hormones have always smoothed over Dean’s rougher edges because he’s always been watching him.

Castiel just pulls Dean down on top of him, again, loving the thud of denim against bare hips. He grinds up – instinct again – and has to bite back a hiss, because he wasn’t expecting it to _hurt_ , his penis rubbing against the rough denim and catching in the wrong way. Foolish of him. In embarrassment, he tilts his head away, but it just centers him back to Dean when the other man sucks kisses into the line of his neck.

“Hey, hey,” he’s saying. Castiel still feels himself throbbing, but Dean circles his hand around his erection and before Castiel can bat his wrist away, tell him _don’t_ because surely it will only make the hurt worse, there is a long stroke of palm on flesh and the throb turns into something else. It’s deeper and richer and Castiel’s hips press back against Dean’s, finding the right spots this time. “That’s it, Cas.”

His hand moves slow for a few minutes, a drag almost, getting slicker as his strokes increase. Castiel’s tongue aches to ask for more, harder, faster, words he’s heard in this situation but never imagined using, but he’s terrified of his orgasm coming too soon.

“Lemme –” And Dean’s pulling his hand away, and it takes all of Castiel’s control to cede to Dean’s greater experience and not wrench his wrist back. 

Then, the heaviness of Dean’s denim no longer presses against Castiel’s thighs. It’s skin to skin, and Castiel lets himself swallow, his head fall back, overwhelmed with it all. He thought he had no idea how humans could do anything, how they weren’t constantly distracted by the infinite possibilities of their world that they could never access, or by the dangers they faced just by breathing. 

That was _before_ he’d known sex. Even a few skilled jerks of Dean Winchester’s fingers against him could get him going stupid and mindless, as it turns out; Castiel does not use words like _mindless_ loosely, either.

When Dean draws their – _cocks_ was the word he always called it, so Castiel will too – together, just in hand, not even moving, Castiel has to clamp his hand over his kiss-ragged mouth so he doesn’t yell loud enough to wake what might as well be his entire world now in this ramshackle little house.

It’s beautiful. Dean, on his knees, trembling a little with the strength required to hoist himself up and his arousal alike, his eyes flicking from thighs to shoulders to lips, is so lovely. Castiel’s old brothers may be readying themselves with swords and strategy for the fight in the next few days, and something seems bitterly wrong that Castiel would have preferred that until he met Dean Winchester.

Castiel winds a hand up, cupping Dean’s cheek. He has to feel it, know the more delicate skin that stretches over his cheekbones. In the past, he did this, but Dean’s face was slack and cold, before Castiel drew the life energy from the trees around his gravesite to bring the Righteous Man back.

Dean’s eyes trace the path of Castiel’s hand, and he jolts when the palm settles against him. He lets himself push into the hand, nuzzle it, just for a second, before he pulls back. “Cas, you just can’t,” he – he is pleading, a worn-out neediness. He drops his hand, like what he’s going to say is so important – as if Castiel would not pay attention to anything he ever said – there must be no distractions. “You get it, right?” 

No tenderness. Not when the world could crack open beneath them. Castiel understands, and drags Dean’s hand back. 

That earns him a grin, easy like Dean isn’t wrecked, and a long stroke. In return, his mouth pops open and his toes curl. It’s instinct again, working its way through his body. 

Everything Dean does should be horrifying. Castiel should not be thinking _his_ body, and he should shudder and withdraw in horror at every touch; they should serve as a reminder that he was once worlds contained in this body, and now it’s just bones and nerves and veins and organs. He is like any other human. 

He can feel as good.

Castiel was a bit anxious at the idea of doing this. The denim against his cock had hurt, and it seemed overly sensitive and too hot between his legs. But Dean slides back, and forward, and it’s just skin on skin, easy and smooth even as it’s stuttered. 

The stutters start to affect him, the way Dean twists his grip at the head. His entire body feels rich with pleasure, lazy and anxious for more all at once. He’s struck by the desire to beg and whine for it, such a human thing to do, but Sam and Bobby sleep upstairs. 

Dean quiets him, anyway, licking into his mouth until he feels wrecked. Castiel feels off-kilter from the way Dean’s thumb presses against the over-sensitive bundle of nerves under the head of his cock, so he skims his hands over Dean’s sides and enjoys the easy rise of his ribs. He’s a little thinner than he was when Castiel brought him back, from stress.

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean groans. Castiel isn’t certain what he’s asking for, but he gets a low, dirty _fuck_ when he shifts his hips hard, so he must have done something correctly. He gets a tight thrill from following the orders he didn’t know he had, which seems like a remnant of the time before his Fall, but it’s more likely something he would have been scolded for in Heaven.

Castiel’s hipbones are sharp, Dean’s more rounded, and he hopes they leave bruises on each other. Now, his body seems less like an angel sword dark with the blood of his brothers, and more like the precious silver, meshed with Grace, that they gathered to make the swords. There is potential. 

It isn’t going to take very long. Castiel knows Dean’s rather rightfully considered himself an expert on masturbation since he was thirteen, and now he’s using all his _moves_ on a virgin who’s completely unused to touch like this.

The sensations hit Castiel one by one, but so quickly they blur. Dean stills his motions to swipe a finger through the heads of their cocks, together, pretty and wet inside the tunnel of his fist. Grinning, he pops the finger into his own mouth, lips flushed the same color as his erection.

Castiel is done. His waist snaps up, a wordless gasp escapes his throat, and he is _done_.

“Fuck,” Dean gets out again, when the world settles, and for someone who didn’t want tenderness he sounds downright worshipful. Just thinking of the word makes bile half-rise in Castiel’s mouth, but it’s beaten down by the sensation of Dean’s wetter hand still pumping them together, the aftershocks of just how complete his orgasm has been. 

Dean comes on his cock, and it’s another jolt to the base of his spine. Castiel even uselessly rolls his hips a few times, trying to find more friction somewhere.

“I don’t enjoy refractory periods,” he grumbles, what may be several minutes later. 

“Sucks, don’t it.” Some of the gruffness has returned to Dean’s voice. He wipes his hand off on his overshirt, balls it and tosses it to the floor, and then struggles back into the rest of his clothing. Only for a few seconds does he take his eyes off Castiel, and Castiel knows he is _blushing_ about it. 

Castiel helped level Sodom and Gomorrah, he was a warrior who hung several of the stars he could look at outside the window, now, and swallowed planets because Baruchiel determined their placements were not good omens; now he’s still flopped over lumpy sofa cushions, his hips bracketed by Dean Winchester’s knees and come streaked up his belly in white smears, and he’s _blushing_. Blushing and hungry and exhausted and yet still buzzing from his orgasm, wanting and needing and amazed at humanity and how they survive all of this, every day, how it is their normal.

The world smells like dust and sour beer and sweat and sex, all of it mixed with the acrid scent of Dean’s permanent marker. Castiel wants to _roll_ in it.

*

It’s Dean’s turn to make breakfast. Privately, as much as he owes the Winchesters and Bobby so much for their hospitality, Castiel is glad they never reached his turn; he wouldn’t have known where to begin, and everyone would have left the table still hungry and cross with him.

Dean rummages through cabinets until he finds a dusty glass bottle, and pours the contents into Bobby’s coffee. He peels the plastic covers off the last two slices of Kraft cheese and lets them melt down onto the sizzling bacon on a biscuit for Castiel. And he spends an inordinate amount of time that only Castiel sees slicing the dark and soft spots off apples and cantaloupe and peaches before he cuts them into cubes and dumps them in a bowl, for Sam’s fruit salad. 

They sit, and eat mostly in peace. Dean finishes the beer he left on the table the night before, and doesn’t complain about it being warm or flat, even though Castiel figures it must be disgusting. _Gross_.

There’s not much to say. Or, there is too much to say, and if they begin now they’ll never end and their plans will fall to the wayside. If Castiel makes a greedy noise when a crunchy bit of bacon rolls against his tongue, with cheese clinging to it, no one comments. 

None of them bother to wash off their plates when they’re done. Sam, Dean, and Bobby move off to throw some things into duffels, last minute. Castiel doesn’t have anything other than the clothing he wears and some things Jimmy left behind in his pockets – his wallet with ID and spare change after they’d spent all the other money and a library card, which Castiel approved of even if human knowledge was horribly limited, and his wedding ring – but if he lasts long enough to be able to worry about shopping for more he will be so, so lucky.

The long ride to Detroit begins, and it’s comfortably loud in the car, the landscape passing by in a blur. It’s sunny outside, and the brightness blurs together with the pale wheat of the roadside. This is the closest to Heaven Castiel has been in a very long time, he feels.

 

**coda.**

He is revived, whole and pure and with the voice of his brothers a rush in his head.

Castiel knows Jimmy occasionally bit the fingernail on his left thumb, and only that fingernail. Nervous habits were frequent in humans. Castiel found himself preoccupied with his vessel’s hands so often, and the uneven, gnawed edge of that nail had bothered him at first. It fit humanity, though. They weren’t made to be so physically perfect. Merely viewing them wouldn’t burn your eyes from your sockets with the horrible beauty of angels.

That fingernail is the same as the others, now. It’s an appropriate length for a human male, but whole and rounded. Unlike previously, he doesn’t feel Jimmy’s stirs. His constant hum of energy had been like Castiel’s own wings and halo, but it is gone. 

Castiel places his hand over his stomach and senses it. The scar is gone too, and he must breathe out in gratitude, for he was sure he would carry the mark of his shame forever, if he was lucky enough to survive. 

His protection tattoo has vanished. Under his jacket, under the shirt, he’s just skin with no trace anyone else was ever there. Warm to the touch with his Grace barely contained in this cage of skin, and cold like marble at once. Jimmy Novak has left this celestial plane, but his body is perfect and whole as humanity can be. Even his hair is relatively neat, bereft of the angry spikes it usually had due to trying to contain his energy and power. It befits an angel.

Castiel’s wings are whole and full now. He extends them, larger in number than they were before. They’re the pink and gold of the most achingly beautiful sunset Castiel has seen, from a quiet beach on the coast of Crete while he dipped blessed beads into the ocean. He no longer truly has feathers, just long sprays of white and translucency mixed with the colors of his wings, and shooting out. Inexplicably, it reminds him of the grind of a motor revving up as a car turns on.

Castiel does not know what happened while he was gone, but his brothers chime a lamentation. He cannot hear Michael over them, when he had always been the loudest and clearest voice of all. The world does not burn, nor have the wheat-colored weeds of the cemetery been replaced with the perfect green of Paradise’s Garden. 

Dean Winchester is sunk to his knees and bloodied across the face. Castiel can – assume. 

Castiel is tempted to clear it all from Dean. He could clean his body and mind alike now. It would be easier, and perhaps more moral, than wiping out any other human’s memory, for _Dean Aaron Winchester_ has been listed as deceased for several years now. 

But that would make him no better than Alastair. Dean broke because the torturer began to slice away strips of his memories, leaving them to rot on the excrement-coated floor of Hell. He would break him _and_ destroy what he was. The woman named Cassie was first, then Caleb. Certain hunts, certain monsters, too many days together with Sam and his father. They’re gone from Dean now.

So Castiel heals him. He aches to wipe every imperfection from Dean’s body, but Righteous Man or not, he’s still a soul stuck in humanity, and there’s still evil out there. 

He leaves Dean’s anti-possession tattoo, but rids him of the handprint. It had been an unseemly blotch, anyway, a sign of how rushed Castiel had been when he remade Dean. The other angels had snickered when they saw it, and smothered their laughter at Castiel’s singed wings. The handprint is gone, replaced by more freckled skin, and Castiel’s wings are more beautiful and awe-inspiring than they ever were before.

Fixing things has a price.

Dean has new skin, even despite the anti-possession tattoo, and he will have a new life. Castiel still worries about Dean’s scars, however. No matter how many times they’re wiped away, humans have ways of accumulating them, he’s realized through first-hand experience. Some angels, too.


End file.
